


Invictus

by becdot



Category: Sex Education (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-27 14:15:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17768339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becdot/pseuds/becdot
Summary: In the fell clutch of circumstanceI have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.– Invictus (excerpt) by William Ernest Henley





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Desperate for these two to have some happiness, so I decided to write it myself. Unbetaed and loosely-plotted, so bear with me <3

Hastings Military Prep School was filled with squat beige buildings and surrounded by a steel grey fence like the kind used to fence in dangerous animals.The few bits of foliage were washed-out smears of brown and olive, and even the pavement seemed to be trying to blend in with the dirt on either side.The message couldn't have been clearer if it had been burned into the stubbled lawn: Fit in.Or else. 

Adam's mind slid to Eric without permission: his jewel-colored eyeliner and bright patterned shirts, the laughter spilled out of him like pure light.Would he have managed to adapt and fit in, here?Or would he have been stronger than Adam, braver than Adam, staring down the rows of identical faces with the same fierceness he'd worn beneath the woman's headdress at the ball, after Adam had mumbled some vague insult?

It didn't matter.All of that was over, now.

There was a group doing some kind of obstacle course training off to the right, crawling across muddy pits and jumping over sawed-off tree stumps with their arms full of what looked like bricks.As the car slid past, a few of the boys jeered and whistled, eying Adam's window with a malicious hunger.One tall boy with dog tags glinting around his neck mimed looping a cord around his throat and tugging upwards, staring at Adam even as his head tilted brokenly sideways.

Adam didn't react, letting his eyes flick over the boys and then away as if bored.He'd learned a long time ago that showing emotion was as good as handing someone a knife to be used against you whenever they liked.Better to give nothing away.

He remembered being five or six, trying to get something out of the cupboard and ending with his mom's favorite punch bowl in pieces around his feet.His dad's run had slowed when he got to the kitchen and saw that it was only Adam."I see you didn't get your sister's coordination," he'd said after a minute, fingers pressing into the counter as if he wished it were the bones of Adam's clumsy hand."Let's hope you at least got her brains." 

Adam had started to cry, old enough to know he shouldn't but too young to know how to stop it. 

"Stop snivelling and pick it up before your mother sees!" his father roared, shoulders braced like a footballer trying to make a corner shot. 

Terrified, Adam had dropped and shoved both hands into the glistening shards.It wasn't until halfway through dinner that his mother picked up his wrist and turned it over, displaying the swollen thumb joint where a thick splinter of glass had cozied up to the bone. 

"It's nothing," Adam mumbled, glancing up at his father for confirmation.In that moment, he would have traded any number of splinters for one of his dad's smiles letting him know he wasn't a failure.

Instead, his father pressed his lips together and sliced off a neat triangle of mutton.His silence had torn through the hull of Adam's ribcage like a cannonball, leaving behind a welling despair.But then, after he'd chewed and dabbed fastidiously at his mouth with a napkin: "Boys will be boys, Doris."He didn't look at Adam when he said it, but it was enough to make Adam fill with hope.

"Boys are gross," Adam's sister announced, barely glancing up from the book next to her plate,held open with a butter knife. 

"Compared to you, of course they are," his dad said, giving her the look that Adam thought he might die without: a fierce pride mixed with affection.Whenever Adam looked at his father, it was like peering into the future and seeing every way in which he would let the man down.

"It's fine, mum," Adam had hissed, pulling his hand out of her grip so fast that it caught the edge of the table and pain fuzzed the edges of the table for a breath.Even that was preferable to the feeling that was working its cold way towards his heart.

The splinter worked its excruciating way out over the course of the next two weeks.Out of some twisted sense of loyalty to his father, Adam didn't tell anyone what happened.When his primary school saw his swollen thumb, he mumbled something about boys being boys and walked away before she could ask anything more.It left a small star-shaped scar on the base of his thumb and a lingering numbness in the tip of his thumb and first finger, but Adam had never cried in front of anyone since.


	2. Chapter 2

The car slowed in front of a building wider and squatter than its neighbours, with two severely manicured hedges lining the pathway.A flag waved limply from a pole, as if it were afraid to display too much enthusiasm.Adam glanced down at his hands, resting in his lap as casually as if he was on his way to the chippy.For a moment, he saw dark skin, nails as blue as exotic beetles, the fingers slim without being feminine. 

"This is us," the driver said, voice gentle.It was the first time he'd spoken since asking Adam if he needed a toilet break halfway through the trip.Adam had said yes, and then set his feet against the stall door and smoked two cigarettes in a row, the last in his pack.The man must have known but he'd only nodded when Adam finally reemerged.Adam hadsneered back.He hated being made to feel grateful.

"Cool," Adam said, and grabbed his duffels from the seat beside him, pushing aside all thoughts of Eric and what might have been.At best emotion was a weakness; at worst, it was a weapon pointing inward.As a new student coming in during his final year, he was already going to have trouble fitting in.Any moment of weakness, no matter how brief, would cost him this last chance to make something of himself in his father's eyes.

 

The meeting with the headmaster was brief, which was good since Adam couldn't remember a word of it.He'd been able to read the lines of threat and entreaty in the headmaster's powerful shoulders, though, and had heard the new student speech from his dad enough times to guess at the meaning: excel and everything would be easy; cause trouble, and he would find out how much more he could hate his own life. 

Some grim-faced general named Timothy escorted him to the barracks, snapping off descriptions as they passed: infirmary, mess, parade field, south and west lawns, younger boys' barracks, administrative building.Even though Adam was half a head taller than the man, he found himself straining to keep up.General Timothy seemed to be powered by a barely-controlled fury, which at least, judging by the way he kicked viciously at a tuft of grass that had dared encroach on the pavement, appeared to be directed at the world in general instead of at Adam specifically.

The chaos of laughter and raised voices and the sound of trunks opening and closing abruptly stilled when the general marched into the room.Ten pairs of eyes swivelled and refocused on Adam like rifle scopes.Adam hovered in the doorway, fighting a bolt of fear so intense and unexpected his duffel nearly slid out of nerveless fingers.

"Groff."General Timothy jerked his head at Adam, and then proceeded to name the other boys in the same rapid-fire cadence he'd used to point out the different lawns.The only one whose name Adam caught was Axe, the dog-tagged boy he'd seen on the field earlier. 

As if in response, Axe arranged his mouth into a smile that did nothing to warm his eyes, as cold and hungry as a wolf’s.

"Perkins, your bed’s a mess.Hundred pushups.”Timothy nodded at a dark-haired boy with long eyelashes and a square, stubborn jaw, who was standing in front of a rumpled bed with one corner untucked."Keep him company, Spots, I can see that crisps bag from here." A boy with red blotched across his cheeks and a layer of fat around his middle sighed and shuffled glumly towards the centre of the room."No food in the dormitories."He waited until the two boys lowered themselves to the floor and then looked over at Axe."Keep an eye, would you?"

If possible, Axe's false smile stretched even wider."Gladly, sir."

General Timothy gave Adam a small, tight nod and gestured to a thin mattress on the top bunk, next to the room's entrance.It was clear this was the least desirable bunk, since it was immediately visible to anyone entering the dormitory and meant Adam would have to listen to every coming and going from the toilets. “That’s yours.Supper’s at eighteen hundred."With that, he executed a tight turn on his heel and left Adam to the wolves.

 

Axe sauntered over to a bunk near the centre of the room, glaring at the boy who lay across the bottom bunk, lips moving silently as he read what looked like a science fiction book.The boy was so absorbed in his book that he didn't even notice Axe until he grabbed the boy's ankle and yanked, pulling him halfway off the bed.

The rest of the room erupted in laughter as the boy yelped and flailed, narrowly avoiding braining himself on the heavy wooden frame."What the..."His protests died when he saw Axe smirking behind him, anger turning as sullen and impotent as cooling embers."Wanker," the boy muttered, but stood up to let Axe sit on the now-empty mattress.

The room was long and narrow, with a row of bunk-beds along either side.Between the beds, Perkins and Spots were still doing push-ups, more slowly now that the general had left. 

Axe settled in with a sigh of contentment, before stretching out his legs to rest a boot-heel in the middle of Spots' back."Groff," he said thoughtfully.His accent was crisp and confident, not so upper-crust that its poshness invited ridicule, but obviously well-bred, the kind of person with enough money to make Hastings a choice instead of a last resort."You a legacy?"

Adam knew better than to lie about something that could so easily be disproved."No."

Axe's mouth flexed consideringly, since disappointment would have implied that he cared about the answer."Didn't think so."He crossed his left leg over his right, causing Spots to let out a soft grunt of effort.Axe didn't even seem to notice."Well, go on then."He glanced at the empty bed in a way that made years of carefully-honed instincts light up at the back of Adam's neck. 

Outnumbered, with no allies or leverage, it was pointless to refuse; all that would do was give Axe an excuse to humiliate him, not that Adam suspected that he needed one.But there was a reason Axe was putting on this show now; if he could undermine Adam on his first day, everything that he did after that would fall under the shadow that Axe had made for him.He'd never be able to escape it.

In the end, his duffels were what saved him.Just as he swung his second duffel bag onto the top bunk, the mattress shuddered and folded like it had been shot.The mattress, both bags, and an assortment of screws and springs – far fewer than there should have been – crashed onto the bottom bunk.If Adam had done what Axe had probably intended and hoisted himself up onto the top bunk, he could have been seriously injured.

Everyone was laughing; even Perkins and Spots had paused their push-ups, though Spots was breathing too hard to laugh and Perkins' face had the expressiveness of a paving stone.A few of the boys were elbowing each other and laughing at a spring that had apparently made it across the room.

Laughter was good.It meant that everyone was distracted when Adam crossed the room in three long strides and socked Axe in the jaw.These were military boys, though, and by the time Adam pulled his arm back for a second swing, they were already on him.

 

When the dinner bell rang, tipping the balance of anger and fear away from Adam and towards the punishment for tardiness and fighting in the dorms, Adam had paid handsomely for his punch: two broken fingers, a bloody nose that probably wasn't broken, bruised ribs and a chafed ring of skin around his throat where one of Axe's mates had tried to choke him. 

When he limped into the mess, one eye swollen nearly shut, silence rang from the administrative table.There was a different kind of silence from the students' table, the dampening feeling of averted eyes.

"Well?" the headmaster demanded.Adam’s vision was too blurry to see his expression, but he knew what disappointment sounded like. 

"I fell," Adam said.

"Sir," the headmaster repeated warningly.

"Sir," Adam repeated.

There was silence."My office, Groff, after supper."

"Sir," Adam said again and turned towards a pale rectangular fuzz he thought was an empty table.There was the sound of an indrawn breath and the bench rocked slightly as someone slid down.Well.Empty enough."Get me a plate or I'll crush your balls," Adam muttered, once conversation had cautiously resumed around them. 

It was a weak threat, given that he was half-blind and could barely move his hand, but a few minutes later there was a scrape and a plate appeared in front of him.He didn't look up at who had given it to him, too focused on not throwing up from pain.He couldn't decide if it was a kindness or a punishment to be made to eat with a nose leaking blood into every bite, but it didn't really matter.His dad had taught him that there were two kinds of people: those with power, who changed the world to their liking, and those without, who got shipped off to military school like lambs to the slaughterhouse. 

Adam speared something soft and forked it into his mouth.Everything tasted like blood, but it was worth it if it meant that no one could have power over him again.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Adam sat stiffly in the tall-backed chair in front of the headmaster's desk, one eye had closed completely and his heartbeat rang like a gong through the chafed skin of his throat and his swollen hand.He held himself as still as possible, but pain still found him with every breath, stabbing into his bruised ribs like an accusatory finger.

The headmaster regarded him over steepled fingers.Adam gave him the pit-bull look his dad had always hated: eyes lowered a degree short of insolent, jaw tensed in a way that implied he wouldn't hesitate doing whatever it was a second or third or fourth time.Once, after another teacher had complained about Adam's poor academic performance, his dad had slammed both hands on his desk and told him he was worse than a pit-bull: dumb and vicious, as likely to bite an attacker as the hand that fed him. 

_At least a pit-bull would love you_ , Adam had thought and didn't say.

The headmaster sighed as if he'd hoped for more but had known better than to expect it, and picked up the phone.

The phone rang twice, thrice.Adam tried to guess what time it was, whether his parents were in the middle of dinner.For a brief, stupid moment he would have given anything to be back there, feeling the fluttering edge of his mother's worry about whether the peas were overcooked as he snuck scraps to Madam whenever his dad wasn't looking.

"Hello?"His dad's voice had the annoyed crispness he got when people had the temerity to interrupt his post-dinner brandy.

"Mr. Groff, this is Headmaster Malby calling from Hastings.Do you have –"

"Christ, what's he done now?" his dad interrupted, voice starting to rise.

The headmaster gave Adam a significant glance, as if to remind him that it was his fault they were in this position, and gave a brief explanation.

In the silence afterwards, Adam could picture his dad's flexing jaw, the little involuntary twitches in his fingers.The hot prickle of disappointment fell over Adam like a wool rug, making the back of his neck sting and burn. 

"Headmaster."His dad's voice was stretched as tight as a telephone wire."May I have a minute alone with my son."The headmaster murmured something and excused himself."Every time," his dad hissed once the headmaster had left."Every time I think you can't possibly be any more of a failure, you manage to prove me wrong."

Adam opened his mouth but nothing came out.He remembered getting in a fight in grade school, after Billy Horton had called him a teacher's pet and pushed him off the climbing structure in the playground.He'd landed on his back with all of the breath punched out of his lungs, a feeling like this one.

"How long have you been at Hastings?"The speaker on the phone seemed to vibrate with fury."Answer me, boy!"

"A-a day."Adam's voice was thready, weak.The kind of voice he'd mock if he heard it on someone else.He put on a sneer and tried again."About eight hours, technically."Anything was better than sounding scared.

"Eight hours," his dad repeated.It was always worst when his voice got like this, cold and measured as an iron chain."Tell me, Adam, do you want to be a criminal?Dream of spending your life in prison, do you?"

Adam had a brief, hysterical thought about Twinks Behind Bars, one of the pornos he'd managed to watch in the school computer lab, one night after detention."No, dad."

"You sure?"He let the silence twist."Can't think of much else you've shown any aptitude for."

"Whose fault it that?" Adam muttered to the chair, which did not respond.

"What's that?"

Adam closed his eyes."A man has to get respect before he can get anything else," he said.The words fell off his tongue like polished stones, bitter and familiar.

"And you think beating the top student will get you respect, do you?" 

"Isn't that the point of military school?" Adam retorted, dangerously sarcastic.It wasn't like his dad could hit him.

He continued as if Adam hadn't spoken."It was one thing with that little queer, Eric or Evan or whatever.People like that don't understand things the way you and I do, but these are upstanding boys from good families."

There was blood in Adam's mouth from where he'd bitten his cheek. _People like that.People like that._ "Okay, dad."His head was throbbing.The blood was hot and thick in his mouth, reminding him of that day in the music room after Eric's hips had shuddered and – no. _That little queer.That little queer._ People like him didn't get to choose.

"You have to earn their respect.If you do well enough, it doesn't matter how posh your accent is or where you came from," his dad said."Do you think I had it easy?"

This part was familiar, well-rehearsed."No, dad." 

"Of course not!"A faint thump, as if his fist had landed on his desk."But I worked my arse off, and when it was time to nominate Head Boy, even being thirtieth in line for the crown didn't compare to hard work."

Adam had looked it up, once.The part his dad never mentioned was that he'd only been Head Boy because the first choice – a boy with a good name and a handsome black-and-white smile – had been taken out of school following some scandal.And what had his hard work gotten him, except an administrative position at a mediocre school that no one had ever heard of?

"Good."His dad's voice was brusque, now, as if he were ashamed of his outburst."I don't have to say that I do not expect another one of these phone calls."

"No, dad."

There was a long silence."Your mother misses you," he said finally, fast, and hung up.The dial tone was very loud.

 

The headmaster was sitting outside, looking uncomfortable in an office chair next to the secretary's desk, as though he wanted to make sure that no one would mistake him for Mrs. Roberts.He leaped to his feet when Adam opened the door."Finished?"His eyes fell to Adam's hand, puffed up like a bouquet of sausages, and his lip curled."Get yourself to the infirmary.”

Adam went.The nurse clucked and asked him questions that he didn't bother to answer.He left with two of his fingers taped together, a fistful of instant ice packs, and a note excusing him from exercise that he dropped as soon as he left the building.Success didn’t come to the weak.

When he got back to the dorm, the other boys went quiet, waiting to see what he'd do.The boy whose bunk was below his had cleared the debris from his bed and was writing what looked like a letter. 

Adam grabbed a fistful of his hair."You're on my bed."His body was screaming, a headache sending electricity through his skull. 

"This is my b–" the boy choked off his words when Adam held a cold pack against his mouth.

"Either you get up or you find out how these taste."Adam pressed a little, wondering how hard he'd have to push for the plastic to split, knowing the boy was wondering the same thing.Power sailed through him like the first sweet kick of percocet, making everything feel steadier, brighter, better.For the first time all day, Adam felt good. 

The boy scrambled away and Adam fell into his bed, asleep almost before he turned his face away from the light.This was the right thing to do: earn respect from the boys who mattered, take it from those who didn't.Do whatever he needed to do to get ahead in his classes.Make his dad proud.If he thought about it hard enough, it would drown out the note of incredulous disgust in his dad's voice when he talked about queers, make him forget the way his bunk-mate's eyes had been as dark and scared as Eric's used to be.


End file.
